Robison Field is the best-known of several names given to a
former major league baseball park in St. Louis, Missouri. It was the home
of the St. Louis Cardinals of the National League from 1893 until
mid-season 1920.
Left
Field: 470 ft. (1893), 380 ft. (1909)
Left-Center Field: 520 ft. (1893), 400
ft. (1909)
Center Field: 500 ft. (1893), 435 ft.
(1909)
Right-Center Field: 330 ft. (1893),
320 ft. (1909)
Right Field: 290 ft. (1893)
Backstop: 120 ft. (1893)
Foul territory: Very large
The ballpark was originally called New Sportsman's Park. It was
located at the corner of Natural Bridge Avenue and Vandeventer Avenue,
just a few blocks to the northwest of the "Old" Sportsman's
Park at Grand and Dodier, which would ultimately outlive the
"New" version by several decades.
The stadium sat 14,500 in 1898, 15,200 in 1899 and 21,000 in 1909. An
amusement park once stood at the edge of left field, as had been the case
at the "Old" park. In mid-season 1920 the Cardinals abandoned
this ballpark and moved back to Sportsman's Park, which by then was owned
by the American League version of the Browns.
Fly
to the site of the Robison Field!
If you have Google
Earth installed, click here
to be "flown" to the site of the Robison Field . Of course
the stadium is no longer there, but you can see the old
neighborhood. (If you do not have it installed, get
it from Google. It allows you to view virtually anywhere on
Earth in 3D using satellite imagery.)
The ballpark became simply League Park under new club owners Frank
and Emmet Stanley Robison in 1899, a name it bore through 1910. It was the
last wooden park to be used by a Major League team.
At that time the team was still called the "Browns", as they
had been during their heyday in the then-major American Association. Some
sources say the team acquired the nickname "Perfectos" in 1899.
It was around that time that the team abandoned the brown motif and
switched to Cardinal red. Thus, a new and lasting nickname was born.
The name of the ballpark was changed to Robison Field by Helene
Hathaway Britton, as a memorial to her father Frank and uncle Stanley
Robison, when she inherited the team and park from her uncle Stanley on
his death in 1911.
Brothers Frank and Stanley Robison, also owners of the Cleveland
National League club in 1899, acquired the St Louis Browns before the 1899
season. They stripped Cleveland of its best players and sent them to St.
Louis. If this made the St. Louis club the "Perfectos", it also
unfortunately made the Cleveland club the "Wanderers", as they
became known when they were forced to play most of that season (their
last) on the road.
Robison Field!
League Park/Robison
Field.
LCPC
Collection
During its last 2 or 3 seasons, after the Robison family was no longer
associated with the team, the park was often called simply Cardinal
Field. Beaumont High School was built on the site, opening in 1926,
which coincidentally was the year of the Cardinals first modern league and
World Series championship.
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